Australia Parliament elections: Vote counting resumes

Vote counting in Australia for Parliament elections resumed today, but the winner will not be known for two weeks as the Australian Electoral Commission must wait 13 days for postal votes to be returned.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is chasing support from key independent and minor parties - the very groups he called a risky double dissolution election to circumvent in order to retain power.

Saturday's election was meant to put a line under a period of political turmoil which has seen four prime ministers in three years.

Though the vote counting for the Senate resumed today, the counting for the House of Representatives will not restart until Tuesday.

 

The delayed counting has been imposed by the Australian Electoral Commission as a result of new security measures.

Before the counting was paused on the weekend, the Labor Party had won 67 seats to the ruling coalition's 65 with the Greens Party picking up one seat and independents claiming four.

Meanwhile, Leader of the Opposition for the Australian Labor Party, Bill Shorten has called on Australian Prime Minister to quit saying he is ready to be constructive in the parliament.

"Mr Turnbull proposed Senate reform. He has made a bad situation worse. How on earth did Mr Turnbull think that an idea of reform could end up with two or three One Nation senators in the Senate? This is farcical. Mr Turnbull clearly doesn't know what he is doing. Frankly I think he should quit," the Guardian quoted him as saying.

He added, "He has taken this nation to an election on the basis of stability. He has delivered instability. His own party knows he is not up to the job, the Australian people know he is out of touch, and he has given a Senate reform which involves two or three One Nation senators. The bloke is not up to the job."

Shorten also made a point that Turnbull used the Brexit vote to urge Australia to maintain stable government and not change to Labor.

"He Brexited himself ... He leads a divided party, he has had an election and he has delivered an inferior and unstable outcome," he said.

Meanwhile, to form the government, either side needs 76 seats in the House of Representatives to form a majority government.